Friday, February 20, 2009

Boardgame Clearance Sale

Below is a list of boardgames at 40% off.

Also check out this article about the problems discovered with Yelp; stuff I was writing about some weeks ago. There's definitely something rotten going on here.

  • 1960: Making of a President
  • Age of Mythology boardgame
  • Aggravation
  • Amyitis
  • Around the World in 80 Days
  • Augsburg 1520
  • Bendomino
  • Buzzword
  • Candy Land DVD
  • Charades
  • Cheeky Monkey
  • Clue Jr. Game
  • Connect Four Game Folio Ed
  • Conquest of the Fallen Lands
  • Counter Strike Warplan Crimson
  • Deluxe Boggle Folio Edition
  • Destination TrĂ©sor
  • Doom: the Boardgame Expansion
  • Dragon Parade
  • Dragons Of Kir Board Game
  • Fiji
  • Froggy Boogie
  • Gheos
  • Gobblet Jr.
  • Hare & Tortoise
  • In The Year Of The Dragon
  • India Rails
  • Iron Dragon
  • Key Harvest
  • Louis XIV
  • Mentalogy
  • Oshi: The Game Of Influence
  • Othello
  • Penguin
  • Perplexcity Board Game
  • Pirateology
  • Primordial Soup
  • Primordial Soup Freshly Spiced
  • RB Class Deck: Battlemage
  • RB Class Deck: Blade Dancer
  • RB Class Deck: Shadow Walker
  • RB Class Deck: Wildlander
  • Runebound: Avatars of Kelsnov
  • Runebound: Isle of Dread
  • Runebound: Sands of Al-Kalim
  • Runebound: Scepter of Kyros
  • Santiago
  • Soccer Tactics World Edition
  • Sorry
  • Space Dealer
  • Speedy Eddy
  • The Construction Game
  • The Farming Game
  • The Simpsons Monopoly
  • Traders of Genoa
  • Treehouse: Xeno Pyramids
  • Twister Moves
  • Wizardology

14 comments:

  1. I'm not too surprised about most of those games, but 1960: Making of a President is an awesome two player game. People should snatch that one up at 40% off!

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  2. Yes, snatch up all 3 of them, please.

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  3. Maybe the problem is that you have too many boardgamers there and the two player games get a bit neglected, but it really is a great game. Also, unlike some other good two player games like Twilight Struggle, the play time is very reasonable.

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  4. Put me down for one of the 1960: Making of a President copies, I'll be in tomorrow morning to get it!

    Kevin.

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  5. Maybe the problem is market saturation - most of the likely customers have already purchased one.

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  6. A couple points:

    First, this is normal and there's not actually a problem. We've got about 600 different titles in boardgames, so this is pruning the bottom 10% that haven't sold in a long time (over a year). I put this off before Christmas, since that's the season. Then I put it off until after Ding & Dent, since they would get lost in the shuffle, and we didn't have the room.

    My turn rate on board games is the healthiest its ever been with our largest selection ever. This should free up cash to buy the new games coming out.

    Second, there's an interesting sales pattern that I'll be looking at. It's a point brought up at a board game seminar I went to last year. I'm curious how many of these games were bought just once.

    How many appealed to only one of our customers and should not have been re-ordered. Perhaps never ordered in the first place. I think it's a good percentage. How could we fix that? Hype special orders? Get a better grasp of demand and know not to re-order the marginal game?

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  7. Twilight Struggle was originally on the list, but I took it off.

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  8. While I think it is worthwhile to keep a single copy of a quality game like 1960 in stock for a longer period of time, I can certainly see why you don't want to have 3 copies sitting on the shelf for over a year.

    This is a game that got favorable reviews and a good local buzz, but that also had a bunch of ding & dent copies sold at the store over the past 18 months. This is the dark side of ding & dent.

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  9. Ah, that explains why it's still sitting on the shelf in numbers.

    I would normally have been far less surprised to have seen Twilight Struggle on the list. While a great game as well, it has a much longer playing time which can keep it from appealing to those who would otherwise be interested.

    I see some other good deals on the list besides 1960. Space Dealer has a rather unique timer mechanic that's worth checking out, especially at 40% off (and I'm not just saying that because I'm probably to blame for Gary ordering it). It's also a great game for when you don't have time for a game to go long, because the timer mechanic makes it so you know exactly how long the game is going to take once you get started.

    Conquest of the Fallen Lands is one I wouldn't normally recommend, but is probably worth a look at 40% off.

    The Runebound expansions are a steal if you have Runebound, and are probably a good enough excuse to go ahead and get Runebound at full price if you don't already have it. I haven't played them personally, but the core game is good, and I've heard good things about the expansions.

    There's probably some other good deals on there as well, those are just the ones I'm familiar with. I know the Rail games get good reviews, but I've never played any.

    On the other hand, you'd have to pay me to take the Monopoly game ;-)

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  10. 1960 was collecting dust long before Ding & Dent. It sold zero copies in 2008, despite being a runaway success in 2007. We just saturated the local market on that one.

    I've played Conquest of the Fallen Land and it was a meh game at full price, but well worth it at the discount.

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  11. Well, I picked my copy of "1960: The Making of a President" up this morning so now you only have two copies to shift! If you decide to add Twilight Stuggle to the list again I will be in to snap it up so mail me if you do! Otherwise I will have to wait a bit.. I have spent too much in your store over the past two weeks since I discovered it! (probably not from your point of view! :-))

    But i will return after I pay all my bills!! :-)

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  12. Thanks Kevin,

    In my mind, all of my customers make good money, fully fund their retirement accounts, and have "X" amount of money for entertainment. My goal is to have as much interesting stuff to entice them to spend X with me. ;)

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  13. Hopefully there'll be one of the 1960 Making of a Presidents left tomorrow when I play Dark Heresy.

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  14. The issue with 1960 is the market is saturated and we have gotten multiple copies for the last 2 or 3 auctions so those that were waiting for it picked it up at a substantial discount at auction.

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